Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Ok, first things first, I've started my own training company. Well, personal training business, if you will. I've been studying for the last few years, and I've earned a certification that allows me to train, which is actually very nice because it really complements my education.

Out West Training is my dream, really. I've been chasing this dream for some time, so now it is very exciting to see it come to fruition. I designed this logo myself with a sharpie, refined it at bit and made it work (I think).

My catch, for my personal training, is that all of it is done outside. Everything in every type of weather. If you read my blog, you'll see that I love the outdoors. So I thought to bring the training outdoors and cater to those who would rather remain outside than go back in.

So often I see the ads in the paper saying get back inside for winter and keep exercising. Well, I say stay outside, and make the most of our 6 months of winter. And why not? You can do just as much outside as you can indoors! I am here to help you train outdoors, prepare for the elements, and encourage you to enjoy the best fresh air you can find.

With the start of a business comes the purchase of some basic equipment. I don't want to go crazy with buying, but I do need some stuff. So I found a local retailer of Kettlebells and bought four of them. These are so awesome they even came on their own skid!

The cool thing is, all of the kettlbells are the same size, regardless of weight. So here we have 8kg, 16kg, 24kg and 32kg. Can you guess which is which?

All of these kettlebells are awesome, and they are locally available at Bells of Steel.

I don't have a website for my training yet, but I do have a Facebook page. Look up Out West Training on Facebook and I can help you get moving towards your goals!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Recently, well, within the last year, I’ve finally figured out how to make homemade pizza. It wasn’t that hard, really, but apparently for years I was doing one thing wrong; the baking process. I’ve always baked pizza at 350 for 20-30 minutes to cook it. Well I didn’t realize that a key step was to bake it at full power for a short period of time. Anyway, here are the results.

The usual pizza we make has a basic basil/tomato sauce with two types of spicy salami, onion, mushroom and pizza cheese. It goes together in about 5 minutes and it baked in another 5. So very very easy!

See how good it is? I couldn’t even get a photo of the pizza without half of it being gone! The key to baking it is the pizza stone, and to prepare the dough and toppings on a hot stone (quickly) and then baking it again. It’s really fun and seems to always be a hit with guests.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Halloween is over as of yesterday, and so is the month of October. This means that winter is upon on us, and what is more exciting for me to wake up on the last day of the month and find this:

Snow! And lots of it! I love it. That means that soon I can use these.

Cross country skis! As procured from Kijiji! Yeah yeah, picked em up last week! What a deal too! I am always surprised when I find used gear that fits me cause I’m so tall and not many people are my size. So a deal has led to yet another winter passion! Winter sports! And because of…

…this, I can use…

…these, or maybe I could use…

…these, but somedays I will probably use…

…these! Maybe I could ski to work in these. After all, I used…

…these last year to snowshoe to work (21km, 4.5 hours) because there was lots of…